Normally, the deciding factor is where the crime is committed or the dispute arises, not
where the defendant lives.

Still waiting for a reason for your apparently bigoted statement…(see my post @50)

Not quite. The plaintiff has to establish that the statements are defamatory, regardless of their truth value. In practice, this isn’t a very tough hurdle under English (or Australian or Northern Irish) law. At this point it’s up to the alleged defamer to provide a defence, one of which is justification (truth).

Nigel: the hearing that Singh lost was simply on the meaning of the alleged defamatory statements, not on the substanstive issue of libel itself. Singh argued bogus didn’t mean knowingly fraudulent in this context, the BCA said it did. Justice Eady agreed with the BCA on this and another issue of interpretation. It was this interpretation that was overturned on appeal.

“The comment which the Defendant contends that the article bears is that the Claimant’s behaviour in so doing is reckless and irresponsible in the light of the lack of any reliable scientific evidence supporting the effectiveness of such treatments and in the light of the risks of the treatment proposed.”

He then sets out, ailment by ailment and study by study, his reasons for considering that none of the available epidemiological evidence reliably supports the BCA’s claims. This is met by a reply of comparable length in which the BCA, again ailment by ailment and study by study, contests his view and asserts that there is some dependable evidence for its claims. Ms Rogers has told us that, given the judge’s ruling that these are verifiable facts, the trial can be expected to involve expert evidence on both sides and a judicial conclusion as to whether there is any evidence for the BCA’s claims.

One has only to contemplate this prospect to conclude that something is amiss. It is one thing to defame somebody in terms which can only be defended by proving their truth, even if this ineluctably casts the court in the role of historian or investigative journalist. It is another thing to evaluate published material as giving no evidential support to a claim and, on the basis of this evaluation, to denounce as irresponsible those who make the claim. Recent years have seen a small number of high-profile libel cases in which the courts, however reluctantly, have had to discharge the first of these functions. But these have been precisely cases in which the defendant has made a clear assertion of highly damaging fact, and must prove its truth or lose.

The present case is not in this class: the material words, however one represents or paraphrases their meaning, are in our judgment expressions of opinion. The opinion may be mistaken, but to allow the party which has been denounced on the basis of it to compel its author to prove in court what he has asserted by way of argument is to invite the court to become an Orwellian ministry of truth. Milton, recalling in the Areopagitica his visit to Italy in 1638-9, wrote:

“I have sat among their learned men, for that honour I had, and been counted happy to be born in such a place of philosophic freedom, as they supposed England was, while themselves did nothing but bemoan the servile condition into which learning among them was brought; …. that nothing had been there written now these many years but flattery and fustian. There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo, grown old a prisoner of the Inquisition, for thinking in astronomy otherwise than the Franciscan and Dominican licensers thought.”

That is a pass to which we ought not to come again.

Also, the UK system is not the same as saying a prosecutor is guilty until proven innocent, rather its the same as saying the person who accuses another of murder has to prove the allegation, not the accused having to prove the allegation is false.

@Nigel @ post 45 & 46 – you could not be more compleatly wrong. The truth of a statement is an ABSOLUTE defence to a claim of libel. Please don’t misinform our american friends, you know how gullable they are.

@DavidB – excellent and even-handed analysis. Great job.

To be honset, I find some of the attitudes on this from Phil and others just bizzare – if someone writes in the paper that I’m a child molester, I damn well expect them to have to back up that allegation in court with evidence, or else compensate me for the damage to my reputation. Why should I, if the allegation is baseless, have to prove that I am not a child molester? Why should a newspaper, before causing my reputation harm, not be expected to have to gather real evidence to back up their claims?

Perhaps what I find most interesting is the knee-jerk “US GOOD! FOREIGN BAD!” tone of the comments. These are equally valid approached to the problem which each have their strengths & weaknesses. The fundamental differences between the two systems in practice are ones of proccedure, not intent and not in outcome – free speech is perfectly healthy in the UK, libel laws or not.

Fact is, in the any justice system, one side has to bear the burden of proof, and in the US system that side is always supposed to be the one that brings the charges, not the side being charged.

Incidentally, it’s the same method science uses: The burden of proof lies on the one making the claims, not on the rest of the world to prove they’re wrong.

Patent and Copyright law in the US work pretty much like libel law in the UK. A person accused of Patent or Copyright infringement in the US is presumed guilty until proven innocent.

Yes, from over here in the UK, the DMCA (is that the one?) looks like a tool for Hollywood and the music industry to maximise their profits.

I was under the impression that the BCA’s allegations were upheld in the initial hearing, but that Singh appealed, and it was on his appeal that the ruling came down in his favour.

I would like to know how you think he might be purposefully creating this situation for the publicity. He lost the first case and only won the appeal, which does not sound like something carefully planned. If he was doing this for the publicity and had not won the appeal, any further restatement of his position would have been very very expensive. As far as I can tell, he was merely doing his job.

And why do you think the new law should have any practical effect on books sold in the UK? It is about whether US courts should uphold foreign judgements on libel, something they have been happy to do in the past as, believe it or not, the US does have treaties with many other countries over respecting the judgements of foreign courts.